Field Forum is a series curated by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan that centres the interconnectedness embedded in the built environment, attuning our senses to material flows, planetary scales, intergenerational times and all the life entangled in these processes.
In this session, Dorothy Tang and Lindsay Bremner will tell the earth from the perspective of the littoral, the dynamic coastal zone shared by land and sea. They will tell stories of the littoral from south and east Asia, examining the instruments used by authorities to measure and control it since colonial times, and the resistance the littoral and its people have posed to such endeavours. It will conclude by asking whether the littoral presents an alternative imaginary for inhabiting the Earth otherwise. Following a short talk from each guest, a conversation with the audience will be chaired by Cyan and Chen.
This event is a floor-based gathering with rugs, cushions and mats, as well as seating for those who prefer it. You are welcome to come and rest with drinks served ahead of the talk.
Lindsay Bremner is a research architect and educator at the University of Westminster in London where she is Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Architecture + Cities. Between 2016 and 2021 she led the European Research Council funded project, Monsoon Assemblages, and since then a British Academy funded grant titled Reimagining the Good City from Ennore Creek, and an ERC/ UKRI Proof of Concept grant titled Climate Cartographics. Lindsay began her academic and professional life in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she published, lectured and exhibited widely on the transformation of Johannesburg after apartheid. She taught architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, at Temple University in Philadelphia, and at MIT as a Visiting Professor, before taking up her current post.
Dorothy Tang is a landscape architect and assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. Her work is concerned with the intersections of infrastructure and everyday life, especially in communities confronting large-scale environmental change. Her current research explores the histories of water, infrastructure, and urbanization in East Asia, the infrastructural landscapes of foreign investments in Southeast Asia and Africa, and the geopolitics of transnational watershed management. Dorothy is an award-winning educator and was formerly the programme director of the Master of Landscape Architecture programme at NUS from 2022-2024. Her design work and research has been exhibited internationally, including the Venice Biennale and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bicity Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture.
Jingru (Cyan) Cheng is Harvard GSD’s Wheelwright Prize Fellow for TRACING SAND and a CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary researcher on field-based research.
Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist and independent filmmaker as well as a CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary researcher on field-based research.
